Latest on MyPoints Following Failed IPO

The quarterly conference call between MyPoints.com’s owner, United Online, and its investors took place last night and SeekingAlpha was kind enough to post a transcript of the call.
According to Mark Goldston, United Online’s CEO (the guy you see in the TV ads for NetZero), Classmates Media (which is Classmates.com and MyPoints lumped together) has “over 58 million numbers with virtually identical demographic characteristics. That’s roughly 65% female, 85% over 35 years old, more than 75% attended college and their average annual income is approximately $75,000.” In addition, he says that there is “minimal overlap” between the two sites’ memberships, creating a “big opportunity.”
Classmates Media accounts for 42% of United Online’s total revenue, Goldston said. In the fourth quarter of 2007, Classmates Media had “another strong quarter with significant growth in revenue.” The fourth quarter is always strong for rewards programs — people are doing their holiday shopping then. Goldston said that MyPoints had “another solid quarter” (the last quarter of 2007). He said response to the MyPoints site redesign was “outstanding” and “tremendous.” “It’s got great levels of engagement versus the previous site…the guys at MyPoints have told me they couldn’t be happier with the way that part of their business is performing and what the new redesign has done.”
He also discussed how MyPoints is monetized. Their revenue from MyPoints comes from three “buckets,” as he describes it: Media services (emails and newsletters), the shopping portal, and targeted surveys. Members are targeted for offers based on demographics (be sure you’ve completed your full MyPoints profile, in other words!). Newer MyPoints offerings like the surveys, plus games and the search toolbar, will be joined by some other new initiatives this year, Goldston said, designed to give MyPoints members “even more compelling reasons to engage with MyPoints and build their points balances.”
Further down the road, in 2008-2009, there are plans to integrate MyPoints with Classmates, something that “could potentially prove transformational for the MyPoints business.”
That’s one thing we’ve learned in watching rewards programs’ evolution over the years — the only thing that’s certain is change. Sites that don’t change, don’t evolve, shut down. I like sites to be stable, but not to the point of becoming stale, or where you get the impression that no one is running the show. So, while I don’t foresee any MyPoints incentive that would get me to upgrade to paid member status at Classmates (I can find former classmates for free through other methods), I can see a situation where Classmates could offer incentives to get me more active on their site — posting on a forum, for instance — through offering MyPoints.
Goldston went on to talk about the failure of the IPO spinoff of Classmates Media. He said that the timing was bad because of a “tumultuous market” and skittish investors who didn’t want to buy stock in technology companies, plus going public at the end of the year was a bad time because investors worry that a new stock could perform badly and make the rest of their portfolio’s overall annual performance look bad. Making Classmates Media its own reporting segment will help show how well it really performs, so they can try for another IPO at a later date, Goldston said.
The conference call was interesting, as always. If you’d like to join MyPoints, please click here (aff).